Continuing the tale three years prior, Gabriel described the wretched pack: a newly turned boy leading, followed by a blonde woman and two men, with at least two dozen in total. With his arm broken and sanctus supplies unusable for lack of flint, he tore free his saddlebags, sheathed his blade, and ran toward a distant road, betting the wretched would pause to feed on his fallen horse Justice. The Ashdrinker urged him to run as thirst and pain wracked him.

On the road in the thunder and rain, Gabriel found a carriage bogged to its axles, surrounded by a dozen crimson-tabarded soldiers and two near-identical inquisitor women of Naél, Angel of Bliss. As the pack closed, panic spread: some soldiers tried to fight, others froze, and the twins cut the dray’s harness, intending to flee on the draft horse. The sosyas panicked and scattered at the sight of the Dead.

When the first wretched reached him, Gabriel made a clumsy offhand cut that severed its leg, but he knew he could not stand against the numbers with his broken arm. Sheathing his sword to still the blade’s voice, he drew his silvered wheellock, already loaded, and shot one inquisitor in the back as she mounted the dray. The other was thrown when the horse reared.

Gabriel sprinted past the stunned soldiers, vaulted onto the terrified dray, and spurred it toward the river, leaving the inquisitors and their men behind as the wretched descended. He admitted in the present that he left them all to die.

In the prison frame, Jean-François questioned Gabriel’s fear, sanctus addiction, and ethics, contrasting his grief over Justice with shooting an innocent woman and abandoning faithful soldiers. Gabriel dismissed the idea that he was a hero, asking what kind of hero he had ever been and answering with bitter laughter.